Tuesday, December 15, 2009

De um a dez (from one to ten)

Here's a video of Christian counting to ten in Portuguese. His pronunciation is just a good as it is in English!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Update on Liam

Liam is doing great today! He now weighs 5 lbs 2 oz. That's only a 1 oz gain from yesterday but it's progress. Also, he's much more active today, and THAT is something to be excited about! The nurse said when she came in today she thought, "he's acting like a completely different baby." So tomorrow (Sunday) they want us to do "rooming in." That's where we stay overnight in the hospital with him and they let us do an entire night's routine alone. If we need help the nurses are just in the next room. It's a transition night for bringing home babies that have had difficulty eating, etc. Assuming all goes well (and it should) we'll get to bring him home Monday morning!

And more photos of Liam



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More photos of Liam




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Liam's cleft palate

Here is a picture of Liam's cleft palate. The cleft is only on the soft tissue so it should be a fairly simple surgery. He will most likely have the surgery when he is about 9 months old. We will start meeting with a team of specialists in the next few weeks. The reason they wait until then is because they want to hear him making sounds (words) to determine if the cleft has any impact on his speech and, if so, to see if the surgery helps.

Something else we've noticed, and you can see it in this photo, is his lip. It looks like his lip maybe had a cleft but then it filled in. And his left nostril looks slightly indented. We aren't sure if his lip and nostril are just that way because of birth (sometimes babies are a little "deformed" when they're born, but they fill out fine) or if it is due to any sort of cleft. We'll just have to wait and see.

Update on Liam

It was weird yesterday bringing Katherine home from the hospital while our baby was still in the NICU. Liam was doing better yesterday. He's getting more aggressive with his eating. And if he keeps up at the current rate he might even be able to come home by this Sunday or Monday.

Yesterday morning they ran a CT scan on him. The scan results indicated everything they were looking was normal. Also, they were concerned about how far back his tongue was attached, but after a closer examination they determined that too, was normal. We're still waiting on some blood tests (for possible infections) to come back but they're expecting those to be negative (that's good).

So, right now he needs to be eating, and specifically working to eat (not just being fed). As long as he does that we should be able to get him back in a few days. His cleft palate in the back of his mouth will be fixed with surgery when he is 9-12 months old. Fortunately it's only on the soft palate, so it should be a minor fix.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Liam Jay moved to the NICU


Today they moved Liam into the NICU. The main reason is that he is not eating well and his weight has dropped to 4 lbs 12 oz. He's very lethargic, even for a 35 week baby, let alone a 37 week baby. They're not sure how long he'll have to stay in the NICU, possibilities right now are 3, 5, or 7 days.

Tomorrow (Friday) they're doing a CT scan on Liam for two main reasons. First, they want to get a better picture of his cleft pallet. From what can be seen, his cleft pallet is a small triangle shaped cleft in the rear of the roof of his mouth. From what the doctors can tell so far only soft tissue is affected, meaning that he isn't missing any bone. He will definitely need surgery between 9-12 months old in order to close the cleft. The second reason for the CT scan is to get a better view of his esophagus. The doctors cannot see the opening for his esophagus, so they think his tongue may be attached too far back. It doesn't appear to be attached so far back that his esophagus is completely closed off (he can eat at least a little, and they can successfully insert a feeding tube), but having a smaller opening from his mouth to his esophagus does make it all that much harder for him to eat. Another update coming after the CT scan tomorrow (Friday)...